1. We take advantage of the low tide for a walk before breakfast. The fog has cleared but the rock slabs are still unreal. Lily triumphantly sits in every single little pool.
1b. We hear a rush behind us and turn to see a flurry of rocks fall from the cliff. The seagulls take flight and we have a new reason to be afraid of that little bit of Staithes. (John says it sounded like a wave coming from the wrong direction and it reminds me something I’d read in my book the night before: after a catastrophic earthquake, the characters walk across a dried seabed and find it disturbing – fearing that the now long distant sea will somehow suddenly rush in. I realise that this is partly why the rocks slabs are disconcerting – we had been to Staithes for two short breaks before we even knew they existed so they feel like something recently uncovered, and the carved seams are like primal fissures in the earth, things that should have long been covered with soil or water.)
1c. I make a certain noise whenever I see a cat in the wild, and I make it a lot while watching yesterday’s handsome chap walking over the bridge – meercatting amongst the flowers at the beckside then meeting passersby for a stroke.
2. We go on a boat. Lily sits on the bench for a little way but then sits at our feet, seemingly less bothered by the excursion than going in the car. Large white waves crash against the cliffs in the distance but where we are the swells are smooth and solid. No one vomits.
2b. It’s Goth Weekend and everyone is parading around the town in their finery. The level of detail and work put into some of the outfits is amazing, and little children get excited about the idea of grown-ups in “fancy dress”. One little girl strops: “I want to be like them, it’s not fair!” (There are quite a few children her age who are dressed up – one girl carries as suitably spooky old fashioned doll, and gives a menacing stare to a camera when a photographer takes invited photographs of their family, and another girl loves being the centre of attention in a full neon green cybergoth outfit – her family are as boringly attired as us but seem full of love and pride for their happy daughter.)
2c. The man throws the end of his chips and the seagulls descend en masse, completely surrounding him. He laughs with pure glee and begs his girlfriend to let him do the same with her dregs.
2d. I forget that the beaches in Southport are peculiar – even at high tide, there is still huge stretches of open beach (in fact, we always try to visit at high tide otherwise it’s miles to the sea) – but high tide on normal beaches means, well, no beach. I’d long looked forward to running along Whitby’s shore with Lily-dog but for the whole four hours we’re there, the sea laps at the cliffs. We stop at Sandsend on the way back to the cottage instead – the sea, with proper waves (again, not like Southport) is still close in but there is plenty of sand and a band of the most fantastic pebbles. Our pockets are as heavy as Lily’s heart as we eventually turn back to the car.
2e. Compared to yesterday’s rain and fog, today’s simply overcast weather has been a vast improvement but it’s lovely to see a spot of blue sky and sunshine as the afternoon passes into evening.
3. The man rushes from his house clutching a wad of papers and runs down the hill. Someone in a car stops him to ask for directions: the man patiently explains the way with hand gestures and laughter, then once the driver is satisfied, the man starts running again, continuing on his urgent way to the lifeboat shed. (The car then drives back up the hill and, as I thought it would, it stops outside our cottage. I tell the little boy in the backseat that Old Jack is away on an adventure and we’re looking after the cottage for him. I promise to tell him that Kenzie popped by.)
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